“So many people expect us to get gold medals and it really is a great pressure for us. Sometimes I find it hard to breathe or even cry under the pressure,” said Chinese artistic gymnast, Cheng Fei. China has entered its biggest Olympic team yet for the Beijing Games, which start on Friday, and many ordinary Chinese expect their sporting heroes will displace the United States at the top of the medal table when competition ends on Aug. 24.

Past history suggests the Chinese should at least establish a new record medal haul, with host countries traditionally putting in stellar performances on local turf.

But try telling that to China’s shooting team.

“Fighting on home soil may be an advantage in other sports, but in shooting we call it the ‘home venue curse,’” team head coach Wang Yifu said.

“Mother tongue interference and home advantage pressure are the biggest obstacles,” he said, with his proteges complaining that fans chattering in Chinese was a distraction.

“If they talk in foreign languages, it’s just a noise. But if they talk in Chinese I will subconsciously try to understand and this is a distraction I have to overcome,” said Wei Ning, the women’s skeet silver medallist in 2004.

“So my number one rival is myself,” she added.

China ramped up psychological training for its athletes this year to help them prepare for the strain, staging special events in front of rowdy onlookers and making sure relatives were in the crowd — often not the case in this far flung country.

“When their parents, relatives and friends are watching from the stands, the athletes are under great pressure,” deputy sports minister Cui Dalin said this year.

“To compete at home demands a stronger mentality.”

The head coach of the hotly fancied Chinese gymnastics team, Lu Shanzhen, has tried to protect his younger charges by refusing to let them speak to reporters.

“They will feel stress if the journalists keep throwing questions like ‘which medal do you think you can get?’ They were trained in a closed environment. Even if we want to change, it needs some time,” he said.

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